Last year at Adepticon 2015 inside my VIG (very important gamer) goody bag was a free starter set for dropzone commander's shaltari. There was also one for hordes, I promptly traded that one away for a DZ scourge starter box.
These starter boxes then sat unopened on my shelf for the last 10 months. I have booked myself in for the DZ tournement at this years Adepticon, as such it is time to break out the paints!
First up the sneaky Shaltari!
Experimenting:
I knew I wanted a scheme similar to the default scheme so I started by priming all of the models yellow and the subjecting an AA skimmer to a barrage of inks, glazes and washes:
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| Some combinations work better than others. |
Tutorial:
Step 1: Base coat: Army painter Demonic yellow / Any yellow
First up prime the entire model yellow. Yellow is always a good place to start when attempting to paint something orange.
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| Army painter sell a Demonic yellow spray can, use that! |
Games workshop don't sell Baal red any more, however Army painter now produce something very similar: Red tone which I have tested and gives very similar results. Make sure to leave an hour so before applying the next step.
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| This wash will add depth to the finished model, if you are in a serious hurry this step can be skipped. |
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| Using washes to redden yellow into orange is a lot easier than trying to paint orange directly. |
Here the red is used to bring out the details in the large central gem and the smaller ones around the hull. This also adds a much deeper tone to the model adding some more depth. Here I have highlighted the central gem with pure red and then added a spot highlight with a pure red-orange mix. Spot highlights will help your models 'pop'.
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| By using red rather than blue or green for the gems we keep our entire model in the range of warm colours (red, orange, yellow), this helps the eye focus allowing the shape of the model to be dis concerned. |
Army painter yellow is not a very strong paint and with a small amount of added water it becomes something close to a wash. This was applied to the forward edges of all parts of the model to imply motion. It was then applied to all of the raised points (such as the top of the central ring) to add extra depth. Because the yellow wash is so weak the model retains an orange appearance.
Next a mix of white and yellow has been drybrushed over the wings to bring out the detail there. If you make mistakes at this stage you can use a layer of bloodletter to return parts of the model to the starting colour.
Finally a layer of gloss varnish was applied to the black on the canopy to give it a reflective appearance.
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| The army painter white is vastly stronger than the yellow. Partly because their white paint is excellent and partly because their yellow paint is terrible! |
The above takes about 10 minutes a model, if you want to cut that down to about 2 minutes a model you can skip the highlighting, drybrushing and most of the detailing. The right model has been washed, glazed and then had the canopy painted black and the central crystal painted red. The results are nearly as good at a fraction of the time.
I hope this helps someone. Comments and suggestions welcome :)
Thanks to Angel Giraldez who first introduced me to the idea of using a wash followed by a glaze.
